Slippery Slab Tower, North Face Direct

Never underestimate a mountain or a route, no matter how easy.

I learned that lesson recently on Slippery Slab Tower, a rather nondescript 5.easy 2-pitch outing near Stevens Pass.

Slippery Slab Tower is the right-most feature on the skyline

Matt has a bum shoulder.  He needs to climb easy stuff.  We hadn't climbed anything together this Summer.  So we agreed on Slippery Slab Tower.  He had been out on volcanoes, snow slogs, and backpacking trips all Summer and was in killer shape.  I'd been getting out quite a bit on pretty hard stuff too.  We both kinda figured that we'd fire this thing off in no time.  There isn't much beta out there.  And the Mounties' climbing guide doesn't include and aspect to the route (it's the NE Face).  So we both went into it with not enough research and a nonchalant attitude.  Luckily, we're both good enough climbers by this point that we got ourselves out of trouble.  But this was achieved by leading wet, downsloping, mossy, loose, crumbly rock that was probably around 5.6-7 in difficulty in mountaineering boots with horrible gear for protection.  Not recommended.

Matt approaches the "obvious 100-foot gully"

Matt doesn't like the chossy gully, so starts up the sketchy, mossy, downsloping-holds face

 Matt ended up lowering off a #1 C4.  I took over, and took a look at leading the rest of the pitch.  I also lowered off when I encountered horrifying wet downsloping moss for holds.  I ended up heading back over to the chossy gully, which went at around 5.6-5.7.  It was super loose.  But there were slings at the top.

Matt arrives at the "obvious clump of trees"

 I led off again on the "second" pitch.  I headed up a vertical face with more downsloping holds.  Most of these were solid, not all.  I did encounter one relic piton.  Somehow I was reassured.  Even if it wouldn't hold my fall, at least I had not been the first one here.

At this point we know we're off-route

 We gained a broad ledge with lots of shrubs.  I led off one more time.  After rounding a corner to the left, I finally spotted a huge alcove with a ton of slings.  That had to be the route.  I tiptoed across another scary traverse to finally regain the actual climbing route.

Traversing back to regain the actual route



Matt leading the actual 2nd pitch, 5.4ish, our 4th pitch



Dodgy rap anchor

Matty is all smiles on the summit

I had fun too

 When we descended the route, we were amazed at how easy it actually was.  If we'd done the intended route, we would have spent approximately 5 hours car-to-car.  Instead we "epic-ed", spending about 8 hours.  Oh well.  I still got home in time to have dinner with my kids.

The actual first pitch - not pretty, but very easy 3rd class gully